


Intro to Lust Bridling

by theimprobable1



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e14 Pillows and Blankets, First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Making Up, Post-Episode: s03e14 Pillows and Blankets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:00:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25190539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theimprobable1/pseuds/theimprobable1
Summary: It’s important to date in college, Abed. It’s a time of freedom and exploration. A time when a simple pillow fight […] could turn to a steamy night of unbridled lust.- Pierce Hawthorne, S1E17 - Physical Education*The aftermath of the pillows and blankets war takes an unexpected turn.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 21
Kudos: 324





	Intro to Lust Bridling

The friendship hats weren’t working.

Or they were, enough for Troy to know he didn’t want to keep fighting, that he never wanted to fight with Abed again, that he never wanted to come so close to losing Abed’s friendship again. But they weren’t enough to… actually make things good again. Troy had taken a shower and changed into a different pair of pajamas that didn’t feel like battle armor, but he still felt like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. 

It was terrible. He and Abed hadn’t spoken a word to each other on the way home. Once they got to the apartment, Annie retreated to her bedroom with meaningful looks, clearly assuming that her presence was the only thing keeping them from talking things out. But actually, her presence was the only thing keeping Troy from suffocating with how _wrong_ everything was. They didn’t start talking once Annie had closed herself in her bedroom. They just took turns in the bathroom, and now Troy was here, pacing the length of their blanket fort (blanket fort! His whole brain was crying) and waiting for Abed to be done in the bathroom. A part of him wanted to just go to bed, lie down with his back to the room and pretend to be asleep and maybe things would be back to normal in the morning. But he couldn’t do that, he was too agitated, he couldn’t keep still enough to actually fall asleep. And more importantly, how could things ever go back to normal? After they’d led opposing armies? After the things they had _written_ about each other? The words were going to haunt Troy’s dreams forever.

He stopped his pacing when he heard Abed come out of the bathroom. Abed pushed aside the sheet that served as the door and stepped inside. They locked eyes, and then they just stood there, neither saying anything. Shouldn’t Abed have a movie reference up his sleeve? Something he could quote, a scene they could reenact to miraculously resolve this? Something to make this whole thing less awful? But Abed wasn’t saying anything, and Troy wasn’t saying anything because he couldn’t think of anything to say and he felt like he was going to cry, this was horrible, the worst thing that had ever happened to him and he didn’t know what to _do_.

Abed cocked his head to the side. “The friendship hats aren’t enough, are they?”

Hearing Abed say that was like a punch to the gut, but it was true. Troy shook his head. “I don’t think so. But I - I don’t want to fight, Abed. Not with you.”

“Me neither.”

“So what do we do?”

Abed was silent for a moment, just looking at him, but Troy could tell that he was thinking hard.

“I may have an idea,” Abed said, taking a step closer to Troy. “If you think it’s a bad one, just push me away.”

 _Push him away?_ Was Abed going to fight him _physically?_ Of course Troy thought that was a bad idea, he didn’t want to hit Abed, that wouldn’t solve anything--

But before he could voice any of that, Abed crossed the remaining distance between them, cupped Troy’s cheek, and kissed him.

_Abed kissed him._

Troy’s lips parted in surprise and Abed immediately used the opportunity to lick inside his mouth, and if Troy had even considered the thought of pushing him away, that thought went right out of his head, along with any other thoughts and the general ability to think. They had kissed before, when they were filming stuff, but it had felt nothing like this. He had always been aware that they were just acting, but it was nothing like that now. Now, it was real. Abed kissed him like his life depended on it, like he’d been waiting to kiss Troy for years and now finally had a chance. Troy was certain that he had never been kissed like that before. It wasn’t a confident kiss, necessarily, but there was a determination to it, as if kissing Troy was the thing Abed had decided to devote his life to.

Troy started kissing back before he’d even fully processed what was happening, because this wasn’t the kind of kiss he could just let happen to him. He buried his fingers in Abed’s hair (so _silky),_ angling their heads to deepen the kiss further as he pulled Abed closer. He realized, in his body more than in his head, that _he_ had been waiting for this for years, without knowing. Why had he never kissed Abed before? Why had he ever done anything when he could have been kissing Abed instead? Nothing had ever felt so right and he wanted more of it, more of Abed.

As if reading his mind, Abed grabbed his hips and steered him backward until Troy hit the frame of their bunk beds. Abed pushed him against it, pressing their bodies flush together, and fuck, this was incredible, this was everything Troy had never known he wanted, _Abed,_ Abed sucking on his lower lip, Abed’s hands sliding over his hips and under his pajama top, Abed’s tongue slick and hot against Troy’s, Abed pushing a muscular thigh between Troy’s legs, Abed letting go of Troy’s mouth only to latch onto his his neck.

“Abed,” Troy gasped, taking the opportunity when his mouth wasn’t occupied to take in huge lungfuls of breath. Abed hummed against his pulse point, a questioning lilt to it like he was asking if Troy was okay, and Troy had never been more okay in his life, only he couldn’t say it because he couldn’t remember how words worked. He pawed at Abed’s back instead, pushing his shirt up to get at the smooth skin underneath while Abed kissed down his neck. A noise started at the back of his throat that sounded suspiciously like a moan but Troy couldn’t be bothered to be embarrassed because everything felt so _good._

Abed pulled back a little and Troy felt a shot of electricity go through him when their eyes met. Abed’s eyes were huge, his pupils blown so wide that the thin circle of brown was barely visible. They weren’t gentle or mysterious right now, they were _hungry,_ and Troy wanted to get eaten.

He lunged, pulling Abed’s head down to his level and claiming his mouth again, kissing, kissing, kissing. Their hips slotted together just right, bringing friction right where Troy wanted it. He rocked his pelvis forward, drunk on the way he could feel Abed harden against him. He let one of his hands drop from Abed’s hair to grab his ass, and then he had to add his other hand because _holy shit, Abed’s ass._ He wanted to be touching it _all the time._ He grabbed two handfuls, which made Abed groan into his mouth in a way that went straight to Troy’s dick, and he guided Abed to meet the rolls of hips in a rhythm that felt so good - so good - so good Troy had to stop kissing him to breath and to let out some more of the probably embarrassing noises that had been building inside him.

Abed’s breaths came in hot bursts against Troy’s mouth as they ground against each other, his hands stroking across Troy’s chest, pushing his shirt up until Troy was forced to let go of Abed’s ass and lift his arms above his head to let Abed take his shirt off. Abed tossed Troy’s shirt to the floor and then wasted no time taking off his own too, and Troy knew for a fact that he’d seen Abed shirtless many times but somehow he’d never noticed until now that Abed was _hot_. Like super smoking hot and the only reason why Troy didn’t spend more time admiring him was because he needed to have that chest pressed against his immediately.

“Bed?” Abed asked, his voice ragged, and yes, that was a _brilliant_ idea. He grabbed Abed’s wrist and pulled him towards the bottom bunk, only managing not to smack his head against the edge of the top bunk by sheer luck. He laid down on his back and pulled Abed on top of him, and then Abed was kissing down his neck again, and along his collar bone, and sucking on Troy’s nipple while palming him through his pajamas and Troy was going to _die,_ he was going to straight-up die, it was so good he could actually hear _music_ over the sound of his increasingly labored breathing. _Of course_ making out with Abed would come with a soundtrack. It was the Star Wars theme, too - it made perfect sense. Other people had to actually _put on_ music if they wanted to have sex to it but Abed didn’t, Abed could just make it start playing inside Troy’s head because he was actual magic and Troy was the luckiest man alive. Especially when Abed continued kissing down Troy’s chest and down his belly and down and _down_ …

“I want to go down on you,” Abed announced in that way he sometimes said impossible stuff like it was nothing, except it was a completely different way now because his voice was all raw and his head was right above Troy’s crotch. “Is that okay?”

Troy couldn’t imagine a world where it could possibly be not okay.

 _“Yes,”_ he tried to say and it came out all weird but Abed understood him anyway, Abed always understood. He pulled Troy’s pants down, and then he wrapped his long fingers around the base of Troy’s cock and _then--_

Troy let out a long moan, loud and high-pitched, as Abed pulled him into the wet heat of his mouth. It was incredible, his entire body felt like it was going to burst and then Abed grabbed Troy’s hand and put it on top of his head and somehow that made it even better. Troy tangled his fingers in Abed’s hair and let his head fall back and let the sounds pour out of him and the music got louder and Abed sucked harder, louder and harder, louder and harder and Troy was going to _come--_

Except then Abed pulled off, right when Troy’s body started getting ready to jump.

“ _The Phantom Menace,”_ Abed growled in a way that would be kind of sexy if it hadn’t rudely interrupted much sexier things. “It’s _The Phantom Menace_ soundtrack.” 

Abed sat up, ignoring Troy’s displeased whine. “Turn it off! Annie, turn it off _now!”_

Troy’s brain was so high on whatever chemicals get released during life-changing blowjobs that for several long moments he simply didn’t understand what Abed was saying. Then Abed started scrambling out of bed and Troy suddenly realized that the music he was hearing _wasn’t_ playing inside his head thanks to Abed’s sex magic, it was coming from the other room, Annie’s room, Annie who was their _roommate,_ and she was _home,_ and she could probably hear everything they’d been doing and had to put on music to drown it out but it was _The Phantom Menace_ soundtrack and Abed hated the prequels more than anything and so now he was going to barge into Annie’s bedroom and he was bare-chested and disheveled and sporting an erection that his pajama pants weren’t doing a very good job at hiding.

“Abed!”

Troy fell out of bed in his haste to go after Abed, and then nearly fell again when his feet got tangled in his pants that were bunched around his ankles. He pulled them up and stumbled out of the blanket fort.

“Abed!” He grabbed Abed’s arm just when Abed started banging on Annie’s door.

“Annie! Turn it off!” Abed shouted, clearly unconcerned with the fact that he looked exactly like he just got interrupted in the middle of giving head. _To Troy_ , Jesus fucking Christ. When the music didn’t immediately stop, he actually reached for the doorknob.

 _“Don’t open the door!”_ Troy yelped in a panic and forcefully pulled Abed back. 

The music cut off.

“We’re sorry, Annie!” Troy called into the ensuing silence and wished a hole would open up in the ground and swallow him whole.

“ _We’re_ sorry?” Abed looked at him like Troy was insane, then turned back to the door. “Literally anything less offensive would have done, Annie! Anything!”

“Guys, I’m sorry too,” came Annie’s voice from inside her room. She sounded about as ready to die as Troy felt. “I just needed to go to the bathroom! And I really hate to point this out right now, but your bedroom is _literally a blanket fort_. It doesn’t. Have. Walls. I’m beyond thrilled that you’re not fighting anymore, but I really, really don’t want to hear you making up. Like that.”

Troy closed his eyes for a moment and tried to pretend that this wasn’t the most embarrassing moment of his life. It didn’t really work. He opened his eyes and looked at Abed. His hair was standing up from the way Troy had dragged his fingers through it and his lips were still swollen and glistening from _sucking Troy’s cock,_ but Troy’s boner was well and truly gone now.

Abed scowled for a moment, but eventually he seemed to realize that Annie’s music choices weren’t the worst offense here. “Sorry, Annie.”

“Right,” Troy said. “Annie, Abed and I are just gonna pretend we’re asleep now, so you can come out and do whatever you need.” He grabbed Abed’s hand and started pulling him back towards the blanket fort.

“Okay,” Annie called weakly from her bedroom. “Sorry! Also, it’s none of my business but sex doesn’t solve anything and you guys should probably talk first!”

Troy didn’t look at Abed as they entered the blanket fort. He just picked up his shirt, put it on and sat down on the lower bunk. Abed did the same, and when he sat down next to Troy, Troy put his head on Abed’s shoulder and pretended to be asleep, trying very hard not think about the fact the equivalent of his little sister now knew exactly what kind of sex noises he made. His stomach felt a bit like he was going to be sick, but then Abed let his head rest against Troy’s and somehow that made him feel better.

They stayed like that as they listened to Annie tiptoe to the bathroom, pour a glass of water in the kitchen and retreat back to her bedroom. And then they stayed like that for a little bit longer, but they couldn’t pretend to be asleep forever. Annie probably had a point.

“So,” Troy said awkwardly, slowly lifting his head. “That was a mood killer.”

“Yes.”

“And, um. Annie’s probably right. We should… talk.”

Abed nodded. “It was a long shot anyway.”

“Hm? What d’you mean?”

“Sometimes in movies people have sex and it solves all their problems. But it’s probably one of those things that don’t really work in real life.”

Troy suddenly felt like he’d swallowed a block of ice. He wasn’t sure he could survive any more plot twists tonight.

“So you… you did that because you thought it would fix our problems?”

“Yes,” Abed said, phrasing it almost like a question, like he wasn’t sure why Troy was asking about something that should be obvious. And maybe it should have been. Because Troy had asked ‘What do we do’ and Abed had said ‘I may have an idea’ and then he had kissed Troy. Only Troy hadn’t realized… he’d thought…

“Oh,” he said quietly. “So you’re not… actually attracted to me.”

He felt the mattress shift as Abed tuned his upper body to face Troy.

“Of course I am. There’d be no chance of it working if we weren’t both attracted to each other.”

 _Both attracted to each other._ It was kind of obvious now, given what they’d done, that Troy was _incredibly_ attracted to Abed, but he’d somehow managed to miss that until now. Apparently, Abed hadn’t.

“You knew? About me? _I_ didn’t even know about me.” 

“I didn’t know,” Abed said, voice low. “I hoped. There’ve been signs, but I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have risked making the wrong move if the situation was less… desperate.”

Troy thought about that, about Abed liking him _like that_ and noticing signs and hoping but not doing anything about it until… until he felt that there was nothing left to lose. That was how far they’d come. They’d almost lost everything, they’d almost lost things Troy hadn’t known they could have, but now he knew and he really, really wanted them.

He looked at Abed, who was wringing his hands in his lap, so Troy reached for them and squeezed his fingers. He knew what he had to say.

“I’m really sorry about that text. I didn’t mean any of it.”

Abed lowered his eyes and nodded. “It’s okay.”

Except Troy knew Abed well enough to know that it wasn’t. He was pretty sure he knew what Abed was thinking - because he’d been counting on him thinking that when he wrote those things. “It’s not. I was hurt, so I said things that I knew would hurt you too, but I didn’t mean them, okay? None of it is true.”

“It is, though. It’s true that you’re my first friend --”

“Okay, maybe that bit’s true, but the rest isn’t,” Troy interrupted him. He kind of hated himself now for playing into the one thing knew Abed was insecure about. “You can and you _do_ have other friends. You know you do. And being your friend doesn’t take an extra amount of patience.”

“I know for a fact that I get on people’s nerves, it’s been made clear to me many times.”

“ _Everyone_ gets on other people’s nerves sometimes. We all need patience to deal with other people and no one can be anyone’s friend without being patient with them, that’s just how it works.” He considered for a moment whether he wanted to say the next thing on his mind, and decided that he did. “You’re patient with me when I need something explained to me even though no one else does, or when I cry at stupid stuff--” Abed visibly cringed, but Troy pressed on, “and we’re both patient with Annie when she gets obsessed with something and decides we all have to be too, or with Jeff when he needs to pretend not to care about things he cares about. We all need to find the right people willing to be patient with us. You’re not any different from everybody else in that. And - anyone who gets to be your friend is incredibly lucky.”

There was a moment of silence while Abed blinked fast, absorbing what Troy just said.

“Thank you, Troy. That’s… a very nice thing to say.”

“It’s a true thing to say,” Troy said firmly.

Abed gave him a small smile. “I feel very lucky to be your friend too. And - I shouldn’t have sent that email.

Troy swallowed and looked away from Abed’s face. “Yeah. That sucked.”

“You should know that all the things I wrote are things I like about you.”

Troy scoffed. He wasn’t _that_ gullible. “You like that I’m stupid?”

“I didn’t say that. I said you’re insecure about your intelligence, which - is true, even though I shouldn’t have said it to other people. And maybe you’re right that I _don’t_ like that about you, because I don’t think you have reason to be. You look at the world from a different angle than most people, which is one of the things I like _most_ about you, and that isn’t the same thing as being stupid. I think I know something about that.”

It took Troy a while to work through all those words, but eventually he thought he got it. “Oh.”

“And your ability to invest emotionally may not be an asset in a war, but it’s what makes you a good friend.” Abed’s thumb rubbed soothing circles on the back of Troy’s hand. “I’m sorry I made you feel like my sidekick or like you opinions mattered less than mine. I promise that’s not how I see you.”

Troy nodded. “Yeah, I think I know that, actually. But sometimes…”

“Sometimes I get too caught up in what I want to do and steamroll over you.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll try not to do that again. But if I do, let me know?”

“Deal.”

They looked at each other and that was all the communication they needed before reaching towards each other and doing their handshake, and something tightly coiled inside Troy finally relaxed. They were going to be all right. They were Troy and Abed.

“I really love you, you know,” he said without really meaning to. He was aware that the words now carried a slightly different meaning that they would have before tonight, but he thought that was probably okay. It was true.

“I love you too,” Abed whispered, and Troy’s heart gave a hard thump against his ribcage. He reached up to touch Abed’s face, brushing his thumb over his cheekbone. For a moment he watched Abed’s eyelashes flutter, mesmerized, and then he leaned in for a kiss. It was different this time; slow and sweet, without the blazing heat but with something gentle simmering under the surface. They pulled apart and leaned back in several times, kissing until their lips tingled, until the gentle something stopped being so gentle.

“You know,” Abed breathed hotly against Troy’s lips, “we could move a mattress to the Dreamatorium.”

Troy had always known Abed was a genius.

*

He was a genius at butt stuff, too. 

*

Troy opened his eyes to the gridlines of the Dreamatorium, and for a moment he wondered if he’d gotten knocked out again because he’d forgotten he was supposed to only run in place while they were running a simulation. But then he realized he was lying on a mattress, which wasn’t part of standard Dreamatorium equipment, and the things holding him down were Abed’s arm and leg. Because he and Abed had had sex last night. Twice. And it had definitely not been a simulation.

He blinked at the sunlight coming in through the partially uncovered window. Abed had taken off the cardboard last night. “You don’t like waking up in the dark,” he had said as he walked to the window to peel off the tape, naked and completely unashamed of that fact, the long lines of his body on display just for Troy. Hmm, that was a good memory. Though not as good as some other ones. Like Abed’s face when he was having an orgasm. Or the way he moaned Troy’s name. Or the way his skin looked coated in sweat. Or...

Some parts of Troy were definitely more awake than others now. He shifted, trying to jostle Abed as little as possible as he turned to face him.

“Hey,” he murmured when he discovered that Abed was awake. He felt his lips spread into a smile he couldn’t control. He wanted to wake up like this every morning.

“Hi,” said Abed, his lovely eyes searching Troy’s face. “Are you having a sexuality crisis?”

“What?” 

“As per genre convention, one or both of us should be having a sexuality crisis and wish to pretend that nothing happened. Given our previously established character traits, you’re the more likely candidate since you’ve exhibited more traditionally performative heterosexual behavior and need to conform to societal expectations, but I can do it if you don’t want to.”

“Ugh. I don’t know what time it is, but I know it’s too early for at least half of the words you just said.” 

“It’s half past ten.”

Troy sat up abruptly. “Why didn’t you wake me? We’re missing biology!”

Abed propped himself up on one elbow and shook his head. “Classes are canceled. Apparently we left quite a mess. Annie and Britta went in to help with cleanup.”

Oh, right. The pillows and blankets war. That was yesterday, even though it now seemed like something that happened ages ago, possibly in a different world. The campus was probably still covered in feathers. Troy had a vague feeling that he should feel guilty about that, but he didn’t think he had the emotional capacity for that right now. He’d almost _lost_ Abed yesterday. Not just his friendship, but also the possibility of this, this new thing between them that felt like the most right thing in the world. 

He flopped back down on the mattress.

“Is the sexuality crisis necessary?” he asked. He was pretty sure he wasn’t having one, unless wanting Abed too much counted as a crisis. He’d never realized he was into dudes before, yeah, but this was _Abed_. And given how close they’d come to losing everything, he really saw no reason to freak out over _gaining something_ instead. “Can’t we just like… be fine with it?”

Abed looked down at him thoughtfully. “A more progressive narrative. I like it. And it’s true it’d be difficult to pretend nothing happened given that Annie knows.”

Troy groaned and covered his face with his hands. Another thing he’d blissfully forgotten about. “Oh my God. I’m gonna die.”

“Why?”

“Because Annie heard us having sex, duh-doy!” He was never going to be able to look Annie in the eye again. He was going to have to avoid her the rest of his life and possibly move to another state and resign himself to a sad, Annie-less existence.

“I know you’re embarrassed by how loud you were --”

“Not helping, dude! Not helping!”

“I already talked to her earlier, does that help? She was embarrassed, too, but I think mainly she’s happy for us. She hugged me and used her I-love-butterflies voice. And she admitted she may have been a little passive-aggressive in her choice of music.”

Troy looked at him between his fingers. “So she isn’t gonna be, like… uncomfortable living with a couple?” The worst thing that could happen would be if Annie decided she’d rather move back above Dildopolis than stay with them.

He only realized what he’d said after Abed blinked at him several times without speaking. “I mean…”

“Is that what we are now?” Abed asked. “A couple?”

Troy let his hands fall off his face and sat up again.

“I’d like to be, I think,” he said, his heart pounding like crazy.

Abed blinked a few more times, and then he smiled, a beautiful, rare smile that made something warm spill inside Troy’s chest. “Me too. Cool. Cool cool cool.”

Troy let out a happy, relieved laugh and pulled Abed in for a kiss, and then another, and another. Kissing Abed should be the first thing he did every morning. He should be kissing Abed all the time. Kissing _his boyfriend_.

“We’ll have to dismantle the Dreamatorium, though,” Abed said between kisses. “We need a proper bedroom.”

“Mm-hmm,” Troy agreed without really listening to what Abed was saying because his mouth and hands were too distracting, but then his brain caught up. “Wait, no Dreamatorium?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve already thought about it. We’ll make a smaller one out of cardboard boxes. It’ll make some simulations more difficult, but it should be sufficient.”

Troy thought about it, about him and Abed having a nice, private bedroom with a double bed and a mini-Dreamatorium right next to it, and decided it was the best idea ever. He was kind of over blanket forts, anyway.

“Best idea ever,” he told Abed, and spent the next half hour showing him exactly how much he liked it.

*

“ _Best friends, best friends, making a cake!_ \-- No, wait. -- _Boyfriends, boyfriends, making a cake!”_

“I never thought I’d miss it,” Jeff said, watching Troy and Abed with an indulgent smile, then frowned. “Wait, did you say _boyfriends?_ When did that happen?”

“I told you what pillow fights can lead to,” Pierce shrugged. “It’s not my fault none of you ever listen to me.”

**Author's Note:**

> * Technically, Pierce talks about a pillow fight "between two innocent girls", but we're just going to ignore that.


End file.
